YouTube Considers Offering Paid Movie Content

For the longest time, Google has been struggling to find ways of monetizing YouTube but never seemed to have got the right way of doing out. The latest plan as reported by Wall Street Journal seemed to be heading towards the services offered by Netflix, Amazon and Apple – paid movie content. According to WSJ’s report, YouTube is currently negotiating with major movie outfits such as Lionsgate, Sony and Warner Bros. And if talks would go well, we might be seeing more premium content on YouTube, specifically newer movies that have already been shown in cinemas.

Both Sony and Warner Bros. refused to comment on the talks. But Lionsgate issued a statement saying that the company is open to exploring other medium by which it can make more money from its movie catalog. Lionsgate was pretty successful with its recent outing with Apple’s iTunes Store wherein one of its movie “Mad Men” was downloaded two million times.

Of course, even if YouTube manages to get the approval of the three major outfits, it still needs to iron out specific details of a possible deal which could determine the success of such project. Specifically YouTube must come up with a reasonable pricing for movie downloads considering the YouTube users are so use into getting their content fix from YouTube for free.

Should a deal with the three outfits push through, it would be interesting to note how this would impact on other players offering the same service.